


Homem Revelio

by wolfbird



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: A little backstory/warm up for a later more serious fic, Canonical Child Abuse, Comfort, First Meetings, Gen, Period-Typical Antisemitism, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Canon, Tina Goldstein is a good person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:33:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8789149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfbird/pseuds/wolfbird
Summary: Tina Goldstein knows what it's like to be a lost child, and she never wants anyone else to feel the way she did. Or, three times Tina meets Credence, and one time everything goes horribly wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Tina meets him, the sun has not yet risen over the city of New York. The No-Maj world is just beginning to stir: lights clicking on, radiators gurgling to life, men and women with weathered hands and hungry children tiptoeing out of crowded bedrooms to make themselves a meager breakfast. The Magical world, however, has been awake for the past 48 hours, tripping over itself to locate a woman suspected of orchestrating attempted sabotage of MACUSA headquarters.

 

Tina, too, has not slept in several days. Queenie’s coffee sits uncomfortably in her chest like motor oil in an engine, and every thump of her heart is almost painful against her ribcage. Her hand, firmly on the handle of her wand, shakes almost imperceptibly. She pretends that she’s not tired. She pretends that she’s not cold. She pretends that she will not return empty-handed.

 

She almost believes herself.

 

The clack of her feet on the cobblestones echoes in the dampness of early morning. The streetlights are swallowed up in the fog, and the streets are still too dark for comfort, even with the faint glow of the first No-Maj lamps behind curtains.

 

“ _Lumos_ ,” she whispers. She holds her wand out in front of her, glad for its familiar blue light. It’s not that she’s _scared_. She just has to be _cautious_ – even a No-Maj with bad intentions could catch her unawares in this light. Her heart hovers somewhere in her esophagus, her ears magic-enhanced to catch any sound. She’s a good duelist, she reminds herself. Well, an alright duelist.

 

 _There_. She turns, wand out, into a dingy side-alley, the kind full of wash-water and sewage.

 

“Who’s there?” she calls. Her voice sounds both too thin and too loud in the damp. The sound repeats: an aborted hitch of breath. A sweep of the light shows nothing.

 

“ _Homem revelio._ ”

 

She sees a flash of him then, as her spell returns to her the image of a gaunt, sullen boy crouched in the far corner of the alley. His breath comes out in plumes before him, and he’s shaking.

 

It’s clear he’s no wizard, or at the very least not a good one. An experienced wizard would recognize the feel of a Revealing spell in a heartbeat, but the boy makes no move. Abruptly, Tina realizes what the sound is: shuddering, half-hidden sobs, quieted now that it’s clear someone heard him.

 

This isn’t her business. In fact, it’s so _incredibly_ not her business that it would be _appallingly_ irresponsible for her to interfere.

 

She feels her heart beating uncomfortably in her chest. The yawning futility of her search twinges in the back of her mind.

 

The boy gives another muted half-sob.

 

She kills her spell and steps in to the alley.

 

“Hello?” she says, quieter now. “I can hear you back here. Are you alright?”

 

The boy still says nothing.

 

“Look, I know you’re here. Please, really, I don’t want to hurt you. Please come out.”

 

A rustle, and then he stands. He’s taller than Tina expected, certainly taller than her, but he’s so thin – just barely bones – and he’s in such a state that it’s clear he couldn’t hurt her even if he wanted to.

 

“You were crying,” she says, stupidly, because of course he was crying, they both know he was crying, and she didn’t have to just go and say it like that. He wipes his face. The sun has risen just enough for Tina to tell that he’s casting his eyes down.

 

“Sorry. Um, what I meant to say is – well, what I think I said at first was –“ She pauses. “Do you need help?”

 

He looks up at her at that, just briefly, as though taken aback, as though he suspects her of some kind of joke.

 

“No,” he mutters. Tina is no Legilimens, but it’s obvious that he’s lying.

 

“Well...what are you doing out here? Do you have a place to stay?”

 

“Yes.” He hasn’t budged from the corner, and he keeps glancing at her warily. She steps slightly to the side, to which he responds by edging forward.

 

She scrambles for something else to say. “Are you hurt?”

 

“No,” he says, more firmly this time, shaking his head at the ground. “No, I’m okay.”

 

The silence stretches between them, punctuated by the sounds of the city beginning to grind its gears into wakefulness. Already, people pass by on the street outside. Tina feels each hour of lost sleep acutely, but, she thinks, however tired she feels is completely unmatched by how utterly exhausted this boy looks. The angles of his cheekbones are sharp with hunger, and it appears an effort for him to keep upright. His shoulders droop forward, as though he is caving in on himself. Tina knows what grief looks like. She knows what despair looks like. She saw it on her sister for years after her parents died. She saw it on herself, in the mirror, too many times to count. What lived in her and Queenie lives in this boy’s face, in the painful way he holds himself.

 

God, Tina wants to help him. Everything about him begs to be helped.

 

“I should be going now, Miss.” He nods his head at her stiffly, his face still raw from crying. He steps forward, out of the alley, towards the street.

 

She turns after him.

 

“Wait!”

 

He flinches, stops, turns back to her.

 

“My name’s Tina.”

 

He looks at her like she’s something stranger than he’s ever seen. She smiles, awkwardly, half-desperately.

 

“Credence,” he says, finally. “My name’s Credence.”

 

Before she can say another word, he turns and hurries away, into the crowd of No-Majes bustling to work as the sun rises.

 

Tina sags against the wall, breathing out heavily. Stupid. That was stupid.

 

But does she regret it? Does she regret talking to the boy?

 

No.

 

And, in her painfully beating heart, she knows that that’s even stupider than doing it in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fascinated with the idea that Tina knew Credence from her early life, but I think it's convoluted and unlikely. I think it's much more likely that Tina puts her work above everything else /except/ for her deeply-held convictions and her seriously deep need to protect anyone and everyone who she feels needs protecting. This plus my deep need for catharsis through the exploration of times where Credence has actually been treated kindly by a human being with good intentions birthed this fic.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wizarding World is in crisis, and Tina feels this more sharply than most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for period-typical anti-Semitism and a mention of period-typical homophobia.

The second time she meets him, it’s midmorning, and the sky is grey and threatening sleet. Her cloche hat is pulled down over her ears, and she’s wearing Queenie’s scarf bundled up over her nose and mouth. She can smell Queenie’s perfume every time she breathes in; it feels like a reminder of warmth and safety, and she cherishes it more than she feels she should.

 

Any other day, especially with the weather like this, Tina would have Apparated to MACUSA, but Apparation has been banned in the five-block radius around the premises for a week now, for security reasons. She set some of the wards herself, each word of the spell and flick of her wand feeding the small coil of anxiety at the bottom of her throat. Every step reminds her that her world is cracked, unbalanced, rotten from within. Every step feels a step closer to war.

 

On top of it all, she’s surrounded by No-Majs on their way to work, so she can’t even cast a proper Insulating charm on Queenie’s scarf without violating the law. She crosses her arms in front of her chest and sticks her hands under her armpits, scowling under the scarf; she’s sure she must look as unapproachable as she feels.

 

There’s a crowd gathered at the steps of the No-Maj bank, and she tries to steer herself around it, but the push of the morning rush is too strong, and she finds herself bullied into its edges. A man, well-dressed, with thick grey eyebrows and an otherwise unremarkable face, clips her shoulder as she passes him, making her stumble.

 

“Hey mister,” she snaps, “Watch where –“

 

The words die in her throat as she realizes, suddenly, _why_ there is a crowd on the steps of a No-Maj bank at this hour. It’s _them_ , the Second Salemers, preaching their nonsense and bile with the same fervor as always. They always draw onlookers, less because of an interest in their proselytizing and more because of the human love for a spectacle. And a spectacle they are indeed: two men in black coats hold banners depicting grotesque images of people burning, one of whom is a young woman and the other a crude, anti-Semitic caricature. A woman whom Tina can only assume is their leader stands between the two men, speaking passionately and earnestly about the need to chase out sin, to expose infidels, to burn witches and Jews and sodomites in the cleansing fires of the Lord.

 

Although there are a great many hecklers and jeerers, there is some clapping, and its staccato rhythm seems to pound in time with the blood rushing in Tina’s head. Quite suddenly and alarmingly, everything is too much, and she elbows her way out of the crowd with a vengeance, determined to continue to work and pretend like the world doesn’t feel like it’s falling apart at her fingertips. MACUSA hardly considers the Second Salemers a group worthy of monitoring, and with the Grindelwald business that’s not surprising, but everything about that woman and her black-clad disciples turns Tina’s stomach. Their hatred is like a living thing, like the dark magic Aurors pledge their lives to fighting. It feels wrong to leave them to their own devices, No-Maj or not.

 

Still, she reminds herself. Priorities. Getting to work on time is a priority. Doing her paperwork for the day is a priority. Checking and rechecking the wards is a priority. There will be time, later, for the Second Salemers. There will be time, later, for war.

 

And then she sees him.

 

He stands on the street corner in front of her, head slightly down, a stack of papers in his hands: the boy from the alley. Credence. By the light of day, it’s obvious that he’s not exactly a boy – he’s a young man, maybe of 18 or 19 – but it’s still unmistakably him, as curve-shouldered and angular as before. She realizes immediately that he’s not wearing a coat, despite the cold, and that his breath once again comes out in billowing plumes before him, as though he’s in the throes of fever.

 

Tina has to go. She’s going to be late for work, almost surely. There’s no time for her to make small talk with this near-stranger, even if there’s still a cloud of misery hanging over his head a mile wide. But still she finds herself walking toward him, closing the distance between them.

 

He must have seen her approaching, but he keeps his head down. He holds himself stiffly and uncomfortably, a stone in the river of people passing him on the street. He probably doesn’t want to talk to her, she thinks. Why would he? The last time they met must have been mortifying. But before she can tell herself to turn back, to go to work, to forget that this stupid impulse ever struck her, she’s standing right in front of him, and he’s watching her with wary curiosity, and now they’re both stones in the river, stopped, looking at each other.

 

She has no idea what she means to say to him.

 

“Hello,” she tries, as though they’re work acquaintances passing each other on the street, as though they don’t both remember, quite painfully and awkwardly, their other meeting.

 

“You don’t want a pamphlet,” he says, not-quite-looking at her from beneath his flat-cut bangs. It’s not a question.

 

She glances at the papers in his hands and takes an involuntary step backward. Emblazoned in bold lettering on the front are the words, “We need a Second Salem”, followed by small, scratching type detailing what must be a list of contemporary sins, including “dancing”, “jazz music”, “idolatry”, and, of course, “witchcraft”. The full effect of the papers would be a bit comedic and sad if Tina didn’t know full well that the woman who leads the Salemers would gladly kill her for at least three distinct reasons. It’s difficult to reconcile that fiery hatred with the young man who stands before her, stiff and bent in to himself, his entire body an apology for its own existence.

 

“I – no, I don’t want a pamphlet,” Tina agrees, steadying herself. She’s a witch and an Auror, she remembers, and she can take whatever threat No-Majes throw at her. “I was just on my way to work and I saw you and thought I’d better make sure and see, you know. How you were doing.” It sounds as thin to her own ears as it must to his.

 

Still, that wary curiosity is back, tempered by a good amount of suspicion. His reply is quiet, edged with something like disbelief. “Why?”

 

Tina looks at him, forgetting the papers in his hands for a moment. She hardly knows herself why she can’t stop thinking about the grief and hurt she saw in his eyes that morning, why he reminds her so much of herself and her sister, except that he seems misplaced and damaged in a way that feels to her both intimately familiar and shockingly unique. She does, however, know why she spoke to him in the alley, before she saw in him whatever she’s seen.

 

She swallows, then smiles, just slightly. “Seemed like the right thing.”

 

He evidently doesn’t know what to say to that. He looks away from her, as though in shame, then to the pamphlets in his hand, then, just briefly, behind him, towards the stairs where that woman preaches. Although she’s certainly no Legilimens, Tina’s had enough experience as an Auror to know guilt when she sees it, and Credence is brimming with it as his eyes finally settle on the pamphlets again.

 

“Do they...treat you well? The Salemers?” She asks gently. The answer’s already there in his threadbare shirt and his trembling hands, but god, she doesn’t want to see it: it fills her with an anger that surprises her.

 

His voice is small, and he doesn’t look at her. “Well enough.”

 

The way his hands clench around the papers he holds, the way he draws into himself as he answers, only serve to stoke that anger even more. How _dare_ they preach righteousness? How _dare_ that Salemer woman smile her self-satisfied smile when all she sows is hatred? She feels the beginnings of magic swirl around her, as though she’s a child again and her magic answers not to words and wandwork but to sheer _feeling_ , and she’s just barely holding herself together.

 

Credence is watching her, she realizes, and her heart nearly stops. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and prepares to excuse herself from the situation she’s created, when, to her surprise, he speaks.

 

“What…was your name, again?”

 

The sheer normalcy of the question catches her off guard, and she laughs. “Oh, right, Tina. Tina Goldstein. Mercy Lewis, I’d assumed you remembered! I must’ve seemed quite rude, not introducing myself and all.” She sticks out her hand. “Credence, right? We should be properly acquainted.”

 

His lips silently form the word ‘Goldstein’. He looks at her extended hand, then at her face. Then, quietly, he asks another question she would never have expected: “Are you Jewish?” He glances over his shoulder, to the steps, to the other Salemers. To that woman.

 

The smile drops off Tina’s face, and she drops her hand, her eyes drawn again to the pamphlets he’s holding. It dawns on her, suddenly, that she may have made a terrible mistake.

 

Credence’s eyes widen in understanding and he shrinks back. “No, please, it’s just that –“ He looks over his shoulder again, then back to Tina. “So was my mother,” he says, so quietly that she almost can’t believe she’s heard it.

 

She looks up at him. Their eyes meet and she sees again what she saw in her sister, in herself, after her parents died: a child, confused, hurt, and painfully, desperately alone.

 

“Oh, Credence,” she breathes, just as quietly, and she moves forward, to touch his face, to hold him, _anything_ to show him what she and her sister had shown each other, to show him that he is not alone –

 

“Credence,” a clear, clipped female voice demands. “What are you doing?”

 

Tina steps back sharply as Credence stiffens. She recognizes the voice. It’s her, the Second Salemer woman from the bank steps. Their leader. She stands just to Credence’s side, watching.

 

“Spreading the Word, ma. As you told me,” Credence says, his voice even, dull, like a man cursed. He looks neither at Tina nor the Salemer woman.

 

Tina is looking at her, though, and she’s looking at Tina. A polite smile curves the corner of her mouth, but there’s something flat behind her eyes, a coldness that makes Tina think of Dark Magic. This woman may think she’s righteous, but so, Tina suspects, do the likes of Gellert Grindelwald.

 

“Why is this woman without a pamphlet, Credence?” the flat-eyed woman asks. Credence flinches and extends a flyer to Tina, his eyes fixed on the ground. For the first time, Tina notices that the palm of his hand is covered in thin, ropy scars.

 

Tina’s blood roars in her ears. She can feel her magic burning beneath her fingertips. Her wand glows hot in her coat pocket. She takes the pamphlet, for Credence’s sake, and then turns on her heel and walks away, heart hammering against her chest.

 

Queenie’s scarf feels too tight and hot around her face, and she reaches up to loosen it, but stops short of touching the fabric when she notices that her hands are covered in something black: ash. She must have accidentally set the pamphlet ablaze while she was holding it.

 

Her hands are shaking. She’s late to work for the first time in a year. When she finally reaches the Woolworth building, the doorman eyes her suspiciously before letting her in.

 

 _Let this be a lesson, Tina_ , she tells herself as she squares her shoulders and prepares to report for duty. _Leave well enough alone._

 

But Tina Goldstein has never done that in her life, and she knows, deep down, that she’s not about to start now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, Credence is Jewish and not a single person can tell me otherwise.


End file.
